Discovery is so monstrous or of such disagreeing parts as to shew it self so vain and chimerical as this Plotthing were at last reduced to proportion as he most Jesuitically insinuates it was done by the efforts and skill of better Artists Rather he ought to be call'd to an Account whom he means by better Artists For the Lords of the Council the Lords assembled in Parliament and the whole House of Commons had the Examination of all things The Attorney and Sollicitor General and all the King's Council had also their Inspections into the Proofs so then these must be the better Artists which he means that assisted Mr. Oates in the management of his Defects It lies heavy upon the Two Committees of Secresie and nothing but a Jesuites weighty Defence can help 'em out They were very ill Artists though our Observator be so courteous as to grant 'em better then Mr. Oates that all their private Debates and Consultations should be only to produce a Plot for Mr. Oates's sake that should so easily be render'd Defective and Fabulous by a Compendium-mongers untainted Witnesses Not so untainted neither as he dreams nor so much Masters of Reputation either by Law or Gospel in regard they have been all so notoriously and palpably disprov'd And that it has been so fairly made out that they onely came to lend their Friends a stretch of Equivocation if it would have serv'd their turn Neither do I believe this Plot-Plaisterer to be a Man of that Grandeur to authorize him to revile any Man with the term of Profligated Wretch unless it be because he may be Excommunicated by Don Paolo d'Oliva nor to be so good a Physiognomist as to judge by any Mans Temper or Poverty of his Inclinations And therefore he might have spar'd his Bear-Garden Arguments when he wrote to Lords and Gentlemen Now if the Observator believe that the weight of his Defences lies in Ifs and And 's and How can it be possible Then we leave it to the consideration of the People upon what has been already said but if he think that the Ponderosity lies in their Vows Denials and Protestations he only builds in the Air and must have Dr. Wilkinson's Engine to keep it from falling For it is certain that the Pope does assume to himself an absolute power to excommunicate Kings Sixtus V. Excommunicated two himself Henry de Navarre Henry Valois of France Now let us see what the Substance and Penalties of this Excommunication are The Pope order'd the King to be Excommunicated which was saith Cicarela in the Life of the same Pope That he should be struck with the Thunder of Anathema That he should incur all Ecclesiastical Censures which are contain'd in the Sacred Canons in the general and particular Constitutions and the Bull of the Lords Supper And the same Censure shall be good against all that assist the same King either with Counsel or any way else And by his Excommunication thunder'd out against Henry de Navarre and Henry de Bourbon Prince of Conde he declar'd them Hereticks and uncapable of succeeding to the Crown of France He also absolv'd their Subjects from all Oaths of Allegiance and Fidelity sworn to those Princes Now if CHARLES II. King of England be Excommunicated at Rome as there is no question to be made but He is for any Papist to profess himself a Subject to CHARLES II. King of England being Excommunicated is not only to disobey the Pope but to contemn and render invalid the Thunder of Anathema the Ecclesiastical Censure the general and particular Constitutions and the Bull of the Lords Supper and consequently to renounce his Religion And therefore all their Denials Protestations and Imprecations signifi'd nothing because they had relation to no Body For according to the tenor of their Excommunication an Excommunicated King is no Body a meer Statue of a King And therefore for them to profess themselves Jesuites and Priests and pray for the King was Non-sense and they dy'd both like Fools and Knaves together in regard it was impossible for the King to be any thing to them that were true Subjects to the Pope Now that the King stands Eternally Excommunicated at Rome as an Heretick is not only plain from the Expressions of Coleman but is manifest from this That no Man of true Religion or Piety I may add Morality would dare to invade the Dominions of a Sovereign Prince call himself His Subject and violate His Laws if he thought either His Laws to be Laws or Him to be a King And the same Argument holds against the Observator's untainted Witnesses who might easily say any thing when they were taught and believ'd that what they said was neither in a Court of Judicature nor before them that were Magistrates For the Magistrates of a depos'd King can be no Magistrates according to the true Papistical Doctrine And indeed it was the Devils Master-piece when he had invented a Pope to entail those two Powers of Excommunication and Absolution to his Chair which are the Foundation of all breach of Oaths all Protestations Vows and Imprecations of all Infidelity and Christian Irregularity As for Langhorne's averring That he did not believe the Pope had any Authority to Excommunicate and consequently to Depose the King in so doing he deni'd the Doctrine of the chiefest Fathers of his Profession Petrus Ribadeneira Becanas of Mentz Jacobus Simmancha Bishop of Badâ—â—â—os Bellarmine himself Hosius the Cardinal and Molanus who all unanimously teach the same Doctrine That the Pope has Authority to Depose and Excommunicate Heretick Kings and Princes and to Absolve their Subjects from their Allegiance and Obedience to them So that he must either have some strange Reserve to himself for that he did not speak but only deliver his equivocating Conceptions in writing or else he could be no Papist but must dye the Lord knows what a double Traytor to the Pope and to his Prince No Man can serve two Masters And therefore he did but imitate St. Peter in a wrong sense as if he thought to have got the name of an Apostle by denying his Master Antichrist thrice before the Cock crow'd once And thus we behold the Policy of Papists who when they deal with others always propose to them the Pretence and Protestations of Religion and the Arguments of their Christian Piety while under the pretext of these they hide their Self-policy to use it in time and place convenient which no Body can for the present discover nor know the depth of the Intrigue but themselves But now as if he were the Supreme Chiestain of the Spanish Inquisition he undertakes like another Guido Vaux with his dark Lanthorn to pry into Mr. Oates's Life and Conversation and to blow up his Repute with a Gunpowder-Plot of Recrimination But all this while who is this Bull of Basin that bellows out all these Reproaches against the Evidence for the King and Kingdom Common Fame my Lords and Gentlemen speaks him a
THE KING's Evidence JUSTIFI'D OR Doctor OATES's VINDICATION of Himself And the Reality of the PLOT AGAINST A Traiterous Libel CALLED The Compendium Contrived by the JESUITS To the Dishonour of the King and Kingdom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theog 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 v. 613. Quanto perditior quisque est tanto acrius urget Horace Sat 1 2 15 London Printed for Jonathan Edwin at the Three Roses in Ludgate-street 1679. TO ALL Our Worthy Patriots And all other Impartial Readers OF WHAT Rank or Condition soever My Lords and Gentlemen WEre it not but that the Inveterate Rage and partial Obstinacy of those that labour to defend the silly Poppetry of the Roman Catholick Religion if I may so terme it has been so apparent for many Ages It might be matter of Amazement how it could possibly happen that after so many Legal Tryals and those also publish'd by the Chief Judges of the Nation to shew the World how guilty the Papists have been any Subject of the King of England should dare to be so hardy as to Print his mutinous Reflections upon the Concernments of his Soveraign and arrogantly jostle the Votes of the Parliament of the Nation in both their Houses But there are great men in the same Danger and Policy with Reward goes beyond Strength The most Unfortunate Mr. Reading took the wrong course to tamper clandestinly with a single Witness Here 's one aimes at the full breast of Truth He shall have all the Hundred Pounds a Year to himself and the Land in Glocester-shire to boot For assuredly this Compendium is but an Engine contriv'd by Men of leasure to batter down those Testimonies which they themselves are conscious to be most fairly levell'd at their Crimes This is call'd Preparation in the Interim and agrees with Policy and Self-preservation For truly if the Gentleman has given himself all this trouble out of pure Zeal it argues him to have little Religion since no bad Subject can be a good Christian He might have allow'd his Prince so much Discretion as to be able to judge of Crimes committed against himself or otherwise have been more respectful to his Royal Dignity then in the Metropolis of his Dominions publickly to tax him with shedding Innocent Blood and from thence to insinuate an arrogant kind of Admonition to his Soveraign to be more Cautious and Wary for the future Which being the absolute and only Construction to be made of all his Toyle I would fain ask the Rational world this Question what would have been the unhappy Fate of a Compendium of this nature written by the Protestants in their own justification under the jurisdiction of the Inquisition But setting aside all his Marginal Industery which has cost him the Expence of a Rhodomando and his gaudy mixtures of Roman and Italick he must not think to vapour here in England with his false Assertions that the Dispute is still on foot unless it be among Fools and those of his own Party or that the Champions for his Friends still keep their Ground unless it be within the Lists of Rome or St. Omers And let him wonder till Dooms-day the Epitomiser will find the want of Consideration very erroniously thrown upon the Good People For when his beloved Friends put themselves upon their Country their Country then who were the people as able as the Epitomizers Worship to judge of an Evidence were persons of that Integrity that they would not have found them Guilty unless they had well Examin'd matters at their Tryals And there was then as much spoken at the Bar as was afterwards made publick to the World But he thinks 't is time to stop the Currant of the Peoples Examination of things which has occasion'd the trussing up of so many of his dear Brethren in several parts of the Nation besides what are still in deserved Captivity some of which are discover'd to be as Infamous for their Debauchery as their open Hostility against the Laws of the Land I would fain know of the Mr. Epitomiser whether he thought the King and Council were not in the same fault with the ignorant people when His Majesty was pleased to Issue forth his Warrants to the Judges of Assize for the Execution of those that lay Condemn'd in the Country Jayles The last Paragraph of his Dedication looks like one of Poor Robins Advertisements made only for the advantage of the Printer who as his prudence foresaw would be no great gainer by this exact Compendium of his and therefore he strains hard to give it the best Encomium he can at the beginning for pithiness and briefness to launch it into the world alleadging it to be five times better then the late History of the Plot because 't is five times shorter Nay he is so conceited of his Exactness that he expecteth that all the Executed Criminals should Rise again and admire it Else what he means by the Persons concern'd will be a great doubt among the Criticks For the Kings Evidence who are Alive are no way Concern'd but only to let him know that such puny Extravagancies must not pass uncorrected And so to the matter it self Concerning Mr. Coleman THe Epitomizer begins his Laborious Abbreviation with that of Colemans Tryal where he comes with the Sheirs of his Consideration and falls a pruning as if he were at work by the Great Were it possible for his Libel to succeed you should see he would fall a snipping again till he had brought it within the compass of a Nut-shell to be worn about the Ivory Necks of Ladies in honour of the within-mention'd Martyrs Now for the better and more plausible carrying on his Design he Challenges and Defies any man to shew him where he has lessen'd the force either of the Charge or Answer But such is the Nature of these be-jesuited Bygots that they can as well leave their Leasing as the Catt turn'd to a Woman in the Fable could leave her Mousing What is it to the World whether he cite true if he do not quote all Or if he leave out the most Material Points that make against him It may be he states the Charge right but he leaves out the Principal Answer made to the Defence Now whither this be not True let the first Proof of the Epitomizer's Honesty determine He Sums up Mr. Oates's Evidence in these Words That in November 1678. Coleman did write Letters by him to St. Omers in which he called the King Tyrant and said Pag. 17 18. That the Match with the Prince of Orange would prove the Tyrants and Traytors Ruine That a Letter under Colemans hand was also then inclosed to La Chaise thanking him for the Ten Thousand Pound which he promised should be employ'd to no other Use but to cut off the King That this Letter was written by the Provincial Strange's direction because he * Pag. 19. had hurt his hand and Mico his Secretary was ill That the Answer was carried to
to be short as certain it is that upon their Evidence after the mature examinations of King Council and Parliament several of these Popish Traitors have been convicted and executed Now after all this comes this Glowworm with his nocturnal reflections in the tale of a Compendium and to defend the Murtherers he cries How can this be and how can that be And against Mr. Oates he tears his throat and baules out Perjury Perjury as if he were practising to cry Turneps and Carrots in a Winter morning Now my Lords and Gentlemen I will put the whole only upon this single Issue whether you do believe that our Soveraign who if ever he did himself Injurie it was always with a regard to the right hand of mercy never to the left hand of Rigour can be ever thought to be much a deviatour from his own innate principles as to harbour and protect in his own Royal Palace a perjur'd person whose perjuries if they may be so called have not spar'd those Grandeurs which perhaps both you and I thought unapproachable Upon this single Issue as I said before and upon this single Contemplation ruminate while you please I lay the stress of all that I have now to say which is only this in few words That since you have not the least colour of reason in the world to question or misdoubt the truth of this Plot and murther so impudently endeavour'd to be render'd fabulous end Chimerical by this Traitor of a Scribler That you will consider the inveterate and irreconcileable Antipathy of the Papists to the prevailing Grandeur of the Protestant Religion That you will consider how much it concerns 'em at this time to lay about 'em with all the Thunder and Lightning imaginable to dispel if they can that dismal cloud of Murder and Treason that threatens the very dissolution of Papacy already the scandal of Christianity and the contempt of Turcism That you would consider how it has been the continual practice of their Church by the indirect means of Lying and Scandal to conceal their perpetrated Villanies or fix 'em upon the Innocent and that it has been their continual Custom and Maxim to endeavor the propagation of their Faith by Destruction and Massacre which both France and Ireland with Tears can testifie and the Ruinous War of Germany by them fomented and carried on as if there were no way to recover their decaying Heresie but by laying Blood to the root of it Then upon these Considerations make this farther Progress Let 'em not think their Liberties so involv'd in yours That they cannot fall but you must precipitate Let 'em not think to amuse ye that Protestants cannot be safe because the Papists are deservedly prosecuted for their Crimes They had Priviledges sufficient Immunities enough all Indulgence imaginable but they have forfeited all by Conspiracy and Murther of the Subjects of that Fountain from whence all their mercy flow'd They would have depriv'd you of your Lives and Liberties your Wives Children and Estates and now they cry The Protestants cannot be safe because some few of the Traytors have been meritoriously Hang'd and more like to be They plot and contrive and being detected cry out Perjury the Land groans under the Sin of Perjury But let 'em know they are not done with yet and let this Traytor of an Epitomizer be assur'd there is that Evidence in Bank that will in time still the noise of his nefarious yawling Since then my Lords and Gentlemen the Providence of Heaven has been so miraculoufly pleas'd to discover these dark Intrigues of Popery that would have been the utter ruine of King and Countrey of Religion Life and Fortune Uphold and Maintain that Testimony to which you owe your Preservation and let it not suffer under the Scandal and Reproach of those that suffer justly by it For the sake of all that is good and holy prosecute the present Discovery which being born up by an untainted and daily increasing Evidence has not only destroy'd the hopes of our Enemies but shaken the very Basis and Foundation of the Catholick Religion And now the God of Peace preserve the King of Salem from whom as He hath been hitherto indefatigably watchful for our Tranquility we have no reason but still to hope the future enjoyment of Prosperity and Plenty of our Laws Religion and Liberties so long as so Good and Gracious a Sovereign remains well guarded against the Treasons of Popery by the Obedience and Vnanimity of his Protestant Subjects FINIS
confess I should have wonder'd that Men of Probitie should have intrigu'd themselves in such a bloody design But why such Christians and Men of Probitie as these passing Mr. Oates neither in Birth Learning Parts or Honesty for they lay no other Crimes to his charge but only Poverty and Perjury very slovenly urg'd upon him should be so abstentions as not to trust Mr. Oates a stirring active man and a new Convert the Abbreviator must give a better Account then he does But his and their Innocence may perhaps hang together in time for Fame reports him at this time Indicted of High-Treason so that it is not his Innocence that makes him resolute and constant as he tells my Lords and Gentlemen but a kind of Newgate-sturdiness that makes him bold and confident But now let me ask all Rational Men one Question What should move Mr. Oates to embrue his hands so heathenishly so barbarously without any compassion without any remorse of conscience in so many streams of Innocent blod without any cause without any offence given him but the petty Expulsion from a Colledge The Compendium-Framer will say The Hopes of Gain and Preferment That 's something indeed But how could Mr. Oates hope either for Gain or Preferment by plunging himself into the discovery of a Chimera from whence he could expect nothing but Ruine and Misery in this world For I omit the punishments of the other world which it may be well answer'd The wicked do not value How poorly does this Compendium Mechanic think of the King the Council and the Parliament that they should be so deluded and cajoll'd by the mean and contemptible parts of such a pitiful Wretch as Mr. Oates Is it to be imagin'd that so much Mercy so much Piety so much Wisdom should prostitute the Lives of so many Innocent persons to the ambitious Perjuries of Mr. Oates Would the King have permitted such a daring Titan to scale the Heaven of Majesty it self and not have immediately thunder'd him down into the lowest Abyss of his Disfavor 'T is not for a Worm of a Subject to the counterfeit image of St. Peter to tell the King of England who is the real Vicegerent of God what Perjury is nor to flourish his pitiful Flag of Defiance against the Royal Standard of His determin'd Justice When the King of England desires to know what Perjury is perhaps he may be persuaded to address Himself to this Mushrome of a Compendium-Framer In the mean time his Diminutiveship would do well to find out some other Employment than to contend with his Sovereign by rebelliously appealing from Him to His Subjects As for his repeated Justification of the Murderers of Sir Edmondbury Godfrey I let it pass in regard it is but meerly Repetition and there has been sufficient Answer given already to all his Flashes and Evasions Only take notice by the way how infamously industrious this Compendium-Scribler has been to assail no less then twice in one Libel the Publick Justice done upon those more then prodigious Assassinates Concerning Dispensations he talks as if he had a dispensation for what he wrote For such an Affront was never offer'd to the Popes Authority at once to deprive him of the chiefest Howers of his Papal Prerogative and so ample a part of his Revenue But he says Lying is a sottish and sensless Crime so is Incest But the Pope frequently dispenses with the latter Sin why may he not as well dispense with the former Certainly if the Author of the Compendium had not had a plenary dispensation for Lying he would never have told so many Untruths as he has done Oh! but it is a great Evidence that there are no dispensations for Lying because so many lost Preferments and Employments for not taking the Test A very silly Argument For it would be a very sottish and sensless thing indeed to lye and equivocate where there was no occasion where there was no hazard of Life no danger of endamaging the Cause of Popery no Fear of bringing an irreparable Scandal upon the Profession of the Roman Catholick Religion there Constancy to their Mother the Church carry'd a kind of Face of virtuous Piety and Christian Patience but when the Honour of the Pope the Reputation of the Church the Dignity of the Catholick Religion lay all at stake upon the single Confession of a barbarous Murther and a detestable Plot there the Case is alter'd there must be grains of allowance upon such an Occasion Lying is no Lying but a Pious and Sem-like covering the shame of our Father the Pope and our Mother the Church and their Daughter the Romish Religion 'T is true some that needed neither Employment nor Preferment refus'd the Test but with others and those the far greater number it went down as pleasantly as Cream of Almonds For which if they had no Dispensation they cheated the Pope and were Persons of no Religion But why do I insist upon a Point that he who disputes against disputes against matter of Fact and the practice of Popery for many and many Ages As for that Renowned Prelate my Lord Bishop of Lincoln I shall not presume to intrude upon his concerns unwilling to incur the Censure of the World as if able to add the Least mite to the perfections of his most accomplisht Learning And thus my Lords and Gentlemen you see how laborious and sedulous this William with a wisp has been to lead your judgments astray and seduce the Belief of the people Now then most certain it is that there was if not still on foot a most hainons and detestable blot against the Life of our most Gracious Soveraign the Government and Establish'd Religion of the Nation That this Plot was carried on by the Papists is as certain let them endeavour to shift it of how they can which is evident by Coleman's own Letters wherein we find no Correspondence with Independants or Presbyterians or Quakers but with Monsieur Ferryer and Monsieur La Chaise with Salamanca and St. Omers and with the Jesuites Benedictines and several other Papists in England He does not crave aid and assistance of money and men from the different Opinions of the Protestant Religion but from the King of France from the Benedictines and the Contributions of the English Roman Catholicks Neither was his design against Episcopacy or Monarchy but to subvert that Pestilent Heresie that had so long raigned in the Northern parts of the World that is to say all dissenters in general from the Catholick Religion by which I say 't is evident that the Papists were the Parties only concern'd As certain it is that upon the discovery of Mr. Oates this Plot was first examin'd and div'd into and that soon after Sir Edmund bury Godfrey was basely and treacherously murthered As certain it is that so soon as Mr. Oates had broke the Ice several others came in and confirm'd his evidence persons that he had never seen or Conversed with before And